Post #7

Addressing whether or not sex trafficking is an issue in Ecuador is arbitrary — sex trafficking is a problem in every corner of this world. The differences between regions lies within the degree and frequency of the horrible crime. In Ecuador, the main targets for human trafficking are indigenous tribes, which make up 7 percent of the population. The most common form of human trafficking is that of poor indigenous women and children who are lured into sex work, with empty promises of studying or good jobs. Moreover, when poverty pushes indigenous groups from their homes into cities, they are also at risk of falling prey to traffickers.

“Girls who have been trafficked don’t report what’s happened to them because of shame and fear.”

In an article, Kichwa and indigenous women’s activist, Magdalena Fueres, addresses this issue of indigenous human trafficking in Ecuador. She notes one of the most main reasons for the gross underrepresentation of the issue is that “Girls who have been trafficked don’t report what’s happened to them because of shame and fear,” often due to threats from the traffickers.

Fortunately, Ecuador has introduced a national anti-trafficking action plan to better combat the problem, providing protection and help for victims of human trafficking. Imposed sentences are harsher, and authorities arrested 56 traffickers in 2016, up from 10 just one year earlier. The country is heading in the right direction.

Trafficking, or buying/selling, humans is a business with an incredibly large revenue — anywhere from $32 billion to $150 billion annually — and it affects the livelihood of millions of people. Unfortunately, however, the efforts to combat this horrible issue have been ineffective or inexistent until recently. In fact, “Since 2008, when the U.S. State Department began tallying numbers on identified victims, it has found only 246,798 trafficking victims worldwide, and since 2006, it has found an average of only about 6,675 prosecutions of human traffickers worldwide annually, with an average of fewer than 4,000 convictions” (Mendelson). These numbers are mere fractions of the issue at hand, pathetic fractions at that.

Sarah Mendelson, former US Representative to the Economic and Social Council at the United Nations and current USUN lead on international development, human rights, and humanitarian affairs, is a woman adamant about ending human trafficking. In her article, Born Free, Mendelson outlines and heavily criticizes pre-2015 efforts (or lack thereof) to halt human trafficking.

In 2000, the UN created Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), an agenda that, though helpful in several ways to developing countries, omitted a very present and pressing global issue: human trafficking. Through her time at USAID, Mendelson heard many statements revealing a lack of interest in trafficking. Whatever the reasons may be, Mendelson states firmly:

“I came to believe that if trafficking had been included in the MDGs back in 2000, many more development agencies would have dedicated staff to the issue and more foundations would be investing in solutions to this complex development challenge.”

In 2015, a new set of goals, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), were suggested and approved, effective a year later. In goals five, eight and 16, the SDGs called to, “ Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls,” “ “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all,” and “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels,” respectively, calling for an end to trafficking of women and girls and children.

In addition to these direct goals, the SDGs also called for indirect subgoals that may inadvertently reduce human trafficking. All in all, the efforts in fighting human trafficking took a total 180 between 2000 and 2015, thanks to Sustainable Development Goals.